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"The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering"

A gathering in Detroit organized by leftist Jews plots on how to give aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies.

While the slogan for the “The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering” isn’t actually “anti-Semites of the world unite!” that would have been a fitting choice, combining both of the “gatherings” two underlying themes: hatred of Israel and adoration of communism. The event is scheduled for June 19 through 22 and will be held, fittingly enough, in Detroit. The once proud and now crumbling Motor City is perhaps the nation’s best example of what happens when leftist dreams come true. Even better, from the organizers point of view, the Detroit metropolitan area is home to a large number of Muslims, so the jihadis living among them can be counted on to make the radical Jews who organized the event feel even better about their self-loathing.

Specifically, the organizers are the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Neither organization bothers to hide their radical, leftist world-view, a perspective that dovetails nicely into their sure and certain belief that Palestinians and Israelis could easily live in peace and harmony, if only Israel would grasp the hand that Hamas and Hizbullah have repeatedly extended in friendship and if only Israel would abandon its foolish alliance with those imperialistic Americans. Or, to put those concepts in less-comprehensible terms, here’s the conference’s official statement of purpose:

“To gather together as anti-Zionist Jewish (AZJ) activists committed to social justice and to challenging racism, colonialism and imperialism – first and foremost by contributing to efforts to overcome Zionism and decolonize Palestine. The Assembly hopes to provide a forum to share political perspectives, campaigns and other activities, culture and ritual, and build relationships toward collective work. Through building assessment of the current moment in the US and international Palestine solidarity movement, larger social justice movements and political context, we hope to build a shared direction for anti-Zionist Jewish organizing in the United States. This is in the interest of making our work more effective.”

To coin a phrase: dhmittude never sounded so good. But, with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network leading the way, such sentiments are hardly surprising. The IJAZN was created in 2008 when Professor Moshe Machover and Selma James announced the adoption of the organization’s charter at a press conference in London. Machover and James’ extremist, radical views – and both would readily accept, indeed would be proud of, the use of those two adjectives to describe their views – have been well documented. While their organization serves as a lightning rod for anti-Semites of all cultures and faiths, one wouldn’t describe either Machover of James (both of whom are Jewish) as anti-Semites themselves. They are rather utopians of the communist variety, wholly incapable of understanding that the price one pays for pursuing the unachievable leftist nirvana is drenched in blood and soaked in misery.

Machover, born in Tel Aviv in 1936, is an unrepentant admirer of all things Marxist. He scorns representative democracy, because in his view our system of government doesn’t give appropriate weight to radical ideas. Oddly enough though, the one representative democracy that comes closest to getting it right in Machover’s world is the nation he hates most of all: Israel. In April 2010 he wrote: “But here is a rare, perhaps unique, exception: Israel has just about the most democratic electoral system possible in a bourgeois state: a consistent form of proportional representation… Minority voices, including that of the Arab national minority, have regularly been heard on the floor of that house.” Not that providing Arabs living in Israel with the very things that Arabs deny non-Muslims in every nation they control – a voice in government and freedom of worship – excuses Israel’s many sins in Machover’s world. Of course not.

Machover has also rewritten history in order to defame the father of modern Israel, saying: “Ben-Gurion preferred to invade Egypt, alongside France and Britain, rather than to make peace with Egypt". And, for Machover, the reason for ongoing conflict in the Middle East has nothing to do with Israel’s enemies. He has said: “…it became clear to us that the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict lay, not in the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, but rather in the conflict between Zionist colonialism and the Palestinians over the land of Palestine and its independence.”

For her part, Selma James founded the “International Wages for Housework Campaign” in 1972. Under this scheme, governments would have had to compensate stay-at-home moms for their efforts. She’s also a buddy of Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez and has been a member of Chavez’s socialist “Venezuelan Revolution” movement since 2002.

The Middle East Children’s Alliance is just as radical. Founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin, a Norm Chomsky disciple, was abducted by Hizbullah in 1991. Recognizing that their captive was coming down with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome, the terrorist organization released her, prompting Lubin to observe that: “They’re just ordinary schleps like the rest of us.” Ordinary schleps armed with missiles and RPGs perhaps, but why quibble with a humanitarian like Lubin? She’s obviously a high-minded pacifist, is she not? Take a look for yourself.

Given the alternate universe in which the organizers flourish, it’s not at all difficult to predict the themes of The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering. According to their world view, the aggressors in the Middle East are nobly defending their rights and their land, while a nation under siege has somehow become an agent of American imperialism. What’s truly troubling is that, based on their words and deeds, there’s little doubt that the organizers actually believe that represents an accurate portrayal of the on-going struggle in the Middle East and that Machover, James and Lubin don’t know how they are being used – and will continue to be used – by terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel.

Seventy years ago an obscure, extremist, anti-Semetic Norwegian politician by the name of Vidkun Quisling helped undermine his nation and welcomed Nazi invaders with open arms. On June 19 another generation of Quislings will do their best to undermine the security of their people’s ancient homeland, not because they actively wish to see Israel destroyed and its people enslaved, but because their minds are so clouded by idyllic, extremist dreams of a leftist-utopia they are unable to comprehend that is exactly the kind of end result that they are in fact supporting.